Indoor Training/Trialing

[EmilyMiller]

I live in SW Michigan. Does anyone know of a trainer/handler with an indoor training facility? Looking to work my BC the winter but can't find an indoor facility. I am duckless/sheepless as well but that can be sloved temporarily if needed.

 

Emily & Shelby

[Kelliwic Border Collies]

Hi Emily,

 

This is pretty much an outdoor sport with the long-term goal to be working the dog out in big fields at big distances. (A few arena trials are the exception, not the rule.) I don't know anyone who trains indoors. Get yourself some really good winter gear and get out in the rain, sleet, and snow if you're serious about pursuing it.

[kelpiegirl]

Actually, I know someone, a pretty respected trainer who does work sheep in her riding arena, when there is loads of DEEP snow, where you can't just suck it up and plod through... But, that won't help you in Michigan!

[EmilyMiller]

Thanks for the input. Unfortunately there are no trainers near me so I would be driving for hours to find someone to train with. The trainer I took her to before doesn't train in the winter months so I am kinda stuck.

 

We were trying agility during these winter months but she won't do the dog walk, and HATES the teeter so that's kind out. Thanks for the replies in the meantime.

 

Emily

[WildFlower]

I have no idea if this is an up to date or reputable site.....

 

http://www.stockdog.com/training/trainers.htm#Michigan

 

Just felt bad that you can't train in the winter and thought it might help!

[EmilyMiller]

Thanks for the link.

I've gone to Jeanne Weaver for her instinct training an while back but she is too far for me to drive 2 or 3 times a week. I was hoping someone would have access to an indoor riding arena to show me how to correctly train directions and so forth. Thanks for all the input though.

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Sheepdoggers,

Ms. Kelliwic wrote:

 

This is pretty much an outdoor sport with the long-term goal to be working the dog out in big fields at big distances. (A few arena trials are the exception, not the rule.) I don't know anyone who trains indoors. Get yourself some really good winter gear and get out in the rain, sleet, and snow if you're serious about pursuing it.

 

 

Every Sunday at 2 pm I hold Dog School in an empty turkey house. There's room for a hundred foot small ring and a arena sized area for more experienced dogs. If it wasn't too narrow, you could do standard sized pronovice outruns - but doing so would teach the dogs to run too tight. As it is we can park our vehicles in a small part of the building

 

I can remind my 9 year old open dogs about shedding, pace and precision. If I had a couple hundred ewes for real life experience, the turkey house/hill combo would be an unbeatable training combination.

 

Almost all training occurs inbye. The well trained inbye dog needs a couple experiences running big to figure it out. In many ways big is easier.

 

Donald McCaig

[Eileen Stein]

Almost all training occurs inbye. The well trained inbye dog needs a couple experiences running big to figure it out. In many ways big is easier.

 

I agree with Donald that the great majority of training occurs close at hand (even though you may be covering a lot of ground when working close at hand, as, for example, when you are walking with your dog to get him comfortable driving the sheep away). Therefore, if you, dogs and sheep have access to the kind of enormous empty building that he describes, you could do a lot of useful training in it. As far as I know, though, facilities like that are pretty rare. I've not heard of anyone else who has one.

 

However, if Donald is saying that it's easier for a dog to work well in a big area than a small one once he's had "a couple experiences running big," I disagree. Even aside from the outrun, IMO it is far harder to achieve a state of real teamwork with a dog, however well trained inbye, who is working far away from you. A dog working close to you is much more conscious of you as his leader and partner, and he is much easier to communicate with and exert control over, than a dog who is working far away. Also, the dog working far away is usually under more stress, because he is bearing so much more of the responsibility of controlling the sheep alone. I remember Red Oliver once saying, "The turn around the post is the place where you reassure the dog that all is not as it might have appeared during the fetch." I think he was commenting on the struggle that is often seen on a long, raggedy fetch before the dog comes into the zone where he relaxes into his handler's influence. A good border collie does, over time, become competent, confident and reliable working far from his handler, but that is an extraordinary capability, when you think about it. That's why it's so often said that an arena trial is not a very good test of a border collie's full abilities.

[EmilyMiller]

I'm not trying to stir anything up. I think I'll try getting a few books and series videos and start Shelby on ducks.

We are going to a CPE show in Dexter, MI the first Saturday in February. I am having a friend of mine run her in an agility trial there to see how she does. She will be running a Level 1 run which doesn't include the weaves or teeter so we will see.

 

Any suggestions on starting with ducks?

[Eileen Stein]

I'm not trying to stir anything up.

 

Don't worry -- threads have been known to drift off-topic around here.

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Sheepdoggers.

My friend Eileen wrote:

 

"However, if Donald is saying that it's easier for a dog to work well in a big area than a small one once he's had "a couple experiences running big," I disagree. Even aside from the outrun, IMO it is far harder to achieve a state of real teamwork with a dog, however well trained inbye, who is working far away from you. "

 

 

 

I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot recently. I’ve trained small and large and working a dog at a thousand yards over rough ground thrills the gut.

 

That said: you arrive outbye; you don’t start there. You get to those big expanses in bye where you (mostly) have control over what the dog learns AND by providing experience for the dog.

 

I was startled the first time I visited Beverly Lambert who owns maybe five acres of very irregular training ground and fifty? dog broke hair sheep.

 

“But Beverly,” you protest, “Trains on big fields on ranch ewes.”

 

True enough but, like most of us, Beverly spends mosty of her training time at home and inbye.

 

Everybody (here) understands inbye training. ”Experience” is more difficult to understand and achieve.

 

I have unpleasant news for those novices who think the “experience” problem is solved by moving to the country and buying a flock of sheep.

 

We ran a commercial flock of a hundred rambouilette and bullet/dorset crossbreds for thirty years on a farm whose smallest field is five acres and largest was eighty-plus. Excepting lambing one or two days shearing and “oops, they’ve broken out and gone up the mountain” my sheepdog never got enough work. That singular is important – when you have more than one, you parcel out the real work reserving as much as possible for the younger dogs.

 

NEVER. If I wanted to give my dog experience I had to create it for them.

 

In this country, I know no equivilent to a hill lambing where the shepherd walks up the hill with his dog(s) and works all day with only a bothy or stable to shelter the weakest lambs. The closest I know to it are western sheepherders (not their employers) and the immigrant herders I’ve met are more-or-less skilled with their dogs, don’t lamb the ewes out or trial and lack the cultural information avaulable to the Hill shepherds.

 

When my dogs were able – with many redirects – to get to the sheep at the very end of our farm's biggest field – I could take them to other big fields for training experience or trials.

 

 

Mostly, everyday, just as you do, I train inbye and expect that information to translate to the dog on bigger fields. It has. If a dog won’t take a flank inbye, he certainly won’t take it a thousand yards away. He may not take that 1000 yd flank anyway but chances are much improved and there is no way to train flanks at a thousand yards. Kent Kuykendahl galloped a horse to the top end to arrive as a misbehaving dog got there and I’ve done the same thing with a subaru but this drastic remedy is a one-time correction, not a training program, and, in any case, is useless in very big fields where you easily put your Subaru into a ditch.

 

Inbye plus experience – not just obedience at a distance butr helping the dog read very different sheep breeds and develop a method which works as well for Texas Suffolkx yearlings as farm St Croixs. Experience helps the dog learn what to ignore in very different landscapes – Florida is not Vermont is not Oregon high desert.

 

I’d argue – contra many who regularly beat me at trials - that life experience PROPERLY DIRECTED helps the dog learn sheepwork quicker and easier. I believe that motel manners, airline ticket counter manners, dog park manners, trial ground manners,outdoor cafe manners (I share the record for "Most sheepdogs under one Greenwich Village bistro table"), elevator manners, office manners and beach manners give a dog confidence the first time he meets utterly strange sheep on ground he’s never seen, smelled, heard or walked before.

 

Donald McCaig

[kelpiegirl]

Well said Donald. I am a REAL green horn, and I remember not long ago (and by this I mean months) asking both myself and a trainer (with a bit of vehemence, I might add) when we could get to the BIG field. The response was "if you can't do it here, you can't won't be able to do it there". So, I took my medicine, and heeded those words. Turns out, they were right Funny thing

[Eileen Stein]

Donald, the only thing I disagreed with you on was whether "it's easier for a dog to work well in a big area than a small one once he's had 'a couple experiences running big.'" If that is what you meant, then I still disagree. If you were right about that, then the arena trial would be the ultimate test of our dogs; top performance of the "harder" work close at hand would establish that the dog had the capability to do the "easier" work on a 1,000 yard field. I can't accept that. But it may be that I misunderstood you, and you did not mean that.

 

I definitely agree that "If a dog won’t take a flank inbye, he certainly won’t take it a thousand yards away." I definitely agree on the primacy of training close at hand, which is the foundation on which training at greater distances is built, and without which the gaining of constructive experience at a distance is impossible. I also agree that -- at least in the east -- even a sheep farmer must create work to develop his/her dog's full potential (but undeniably you've taken a big step toward being able to create that work by getting the farm and the sheep!).

 

I’d argue – contra many who regularly beat me at trials - that life experience PROPERLY DIRECTED helps the dog learn sheepwork quicker and easier. I believe that motel manners, airline ticket counter manners, dog park manners, trial ground manners,outdoor cafe manners (I share the record for "Most sheepdogs under one Greenwich Village bistro table"), elevator manners, office manners and beach manners give a dog confidence the first time he meets utterly strange sheep on ground he’s never seen, smelled, heard or walked before.

 

Well, manners are good, and all good experiences are good, but the overwhelming majority of top-performing sheepdogs in this country have little or no experience with motels, airline ticket counters, dog parks, outdoor cafes, elevators, etc., so I have to wonder what your supporting evidence is for this argument. I've never seen any indication that these top sheepdogs learn sheepwork more slowly and with greater difficulty than the dogs with polished urban manners, and I have to conclude that they are getting their confidence to deal with trial situations somewhere else. Actually, I would be inclined to argue the converse of what you're saying here -- that the confidence gained in working sheep and the relationship with their handler that is necessary for working sheep well are what produce the good manners we see these dogs display on the trial ground or in motels (and would see in them if they found themselves at an airline counter or in Greenwich Village), as well as what produce their confidence to confront new sheep in a new place.

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Sheepdoggers,

 

Eileen writes:. Actually, I would argue the converse of what you're saying here -- that the confidence gained in working sheep and the relationship with their handler that is necessary for working sheep well are what produce the good manners we see these dogs display on the trial ground or in motels (and would see in them if they found themselves at an airline counter or in Greenwich Village), as well as what produces their confidence to confront new sheep in a new place.

 

 

I agree. A commonplace of my dog school has been the owner who says, amazed, "Now that he's working sheep, he's so much better behaved at home."

 

And while Border Collies are contra indicated for many pet owners, retired open dogs - who never again see sheep - make lovely pets.

 

I guess I was arguing - clumsily - against the oft heard theory that sheepdogs should be kept on a short chain in the byre unless they're exersizing, working or being trained; on the grounds that work experience is all they should have and they'll be so grateful for that brief window of freedom, they'll be more attentive to their handler.

 

Every year I fool with these damn dogs they get smarter! I believe they are able to compartmentalize elaborate, complicated experiences and that the bigger world they understand, the better they'll be on the trial field.

 

I have a fond memory of Sturgis 1, when many handlers were staying at the Best Western and if you got up early enough for coffee you'd find the setout crew in the lobby filling to-go cups, surrounded by a dozen silent mannerly sheepdogs.

 

Donald McCaig

[urge to herd]

Thanks to Emily for starting the thread, Donald and Eileen for wonderful back and forth discussion/clarifications, and Kelpiegirl for her comment.

 

Awesome. Just awesome.

 

Ruth

[Eileen Stein]

Every year I fool with these damn dogs they get smarter! I believe they are able to compartmentalize elaborate, complicated experiences and that the bigger world they understand, the better they'll be on the trial field.

Donald, on this I'm in complete agreement with you. I could never buy that "Put them up except when they're working, and they'll work better" rationale. They are not so different from us -- the more chance they have to experience and cope successfully with diverse situations, the more resources they have to draw on when facing new situations.

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Sheepdoggers,

 

Eileen wrote: ' . . . the more chance they have to experience and cope successfully with diverse situations, the more resources they have to draw on when facing new situations."

 

Last month my 9 year old June and I ran in a South Carolina trial whose host's wife was a school teacher so June and I were off to school. June has seen Paris, Sturgis, Modesto, Carmarthen, Klamath Falls, New York, Dallas and San Fransisco.

 

When we entered the kindergarden, the teachers had the kids who were afraid of dogs sit at a table while the others patted June. She rolled on her back smiling as each child patted her belly. "Now wash your hands,"Billy. Now wash your hands, Mary."

 

June's never around kids and June doesn't lie on her back for anybody, including me. She just figured out what kindergarten kids would like.

 

Trialing observation: dogs get so accustomed to their region - its particular gestalt - and their sheep - their subtle peculiarities that if you travel to the San Joaguin valley to trial on range sheep or Vermont for trial savvy hair sheep - your dog has got to be outstanding to compete. The locals will eat your lunch. But when they get to the Finals?

 

Yes, exceptional dog/handler combos can win anywhere but that's (in part) because their dogs have worked and trialed pretty much everywhere.

 

It didn't surprise me at the World Trial in Wales when half the finalists were Welsh with Welsh dogs. Home court advantage.

 

Donald McCaig